


The Water is Calm

by DESTIELforever67



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Comforting, Crying, Depression, First Kiss, M/M, No Smut, Songs, Tears, he just wrote about it, im sorry, joshler - Freeform, not really - Freeform, they are in a hotel, this is sad, tyler wrote a song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 02:02:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8426584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DESTIELforever67/pseuds/DESTIELforever67
Summary: Tyler wrote a song about Josh. He sings it to him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> There are probably a million typos as usual.

Tyler sat, ankles crossed, on the hotel bed. His hand ran idly over his ukulele, his mind running wild. When he hears the bathroom door unlock and open, his heart races faster. He looks over to Josh, towel hanging lowly on his hips. Josh walks over to his bed, where his open suitcase lay. He grabs some sweatpants and an old t-shirt. Tyler doesn’t question it in the least. Josh walks back over to the bathroom, loosely shutting the door. Tyler goes back to thinking. He wrote a song…and he wanted for Josh to hear it. But would he like it? He sighs as his best friend walked back over to his bed, fully dressed in what he was to sleep in. His hair dripped with water. The drops fell onto his gray shirt, turning it a deeper shade. He sits on the side of the bed, his body aimed toward Tyler’s bed.

“Hey,” Josh says, looking at him.

Tyler finally meets his eyes. “Hey.”

“What have you been doing?” he questions, hands clasped in front of him. 

Tyler shrugs. “Nothing really…just thinking.”

Josh doesn’t ask what he was thinking about.

“I finished writing a song,” he says, ignoring his thoughts that keep telling him otherwise.

“Can I hear it?” Josh questions.

Tyler smiles. He nods and swings his legs over the bed so he is sitting, facing Josh. He holds his ukulele with perfection as he takes a shaky breath. He stares into his dark eyes. Josh listens eagerly, like nothing else matters.

His fingers strum a few soft cords. “You don't--no you don't know me,” he sings softly. “You just see the line between the sky and the sea.” He looks down to where their feet are rested next to each other. “I'm swimming in my own pain.” He looks back to his best friend. “My pain is ruling its own game.” The cords he plays never speed up. They are soft and caring. “In the dark of the sea.” The world seems to not be moving. The hotel is silent and their hearts beat in sync. “Because you don't--you don't know me.” 

Josh’s full attention is focused on the words falling from Tyler’s mouth.

“The water is calm, but you don't know what monsters hide in the dark.” Tyler lets his heart lead him as he continues singing. “Am I making my mark?” His eyebrow slightly raises, but only enough for Josh to see. “Am I making good with this curse?” He stops playing. “Do I need another verse?”

Josh keeps looking at him, his mind processing Tyler’s words.

He begins to play his ukulele again. “My mind is shades of gray.” Tyler’s voice, Josh concluded a long time ago, sounds better than any angel. “The light, the dark, the dark. I'll try to live another day.” Their eyes are glued to each other’s. “Am I making my mark? Am I making good with this ride that is rough? Will I ever be enough?”

Their hearts are connected.

His voice starts to speed up; like if he were on stage he would be rapping. Now, however, he keeps his voice slow so it doesn’t shake. “No one sees past the ink on my skin,” he sings and his eyes flash momentarily to the tattoos on his wrists. It only lasts a second, as he looks back at Josh. “Make it with a fake grin.” He smiles, but it soon dies out. “He tries to save me.” Josh’s face saddens even more. “Take care of me like”—he stops playing to gesture with his fingers—“1, 2, 3.” He goes back to playing. “But it isn't only me who needs the saving.” He pauses and his breath hitches. “And I am trying.” He looks at Josh with all of his broken promises in his eyes. “To be enough for him.” Josh’s breath leaves his lungs, but his body quickly forces him to breathe again. “In the hotel that is dim.”

Josh knows, without fail, who this song is about.

“He thinks he is supposed to take care of me,” Tyler rings, and shakes his head with the next line. “But he won't see…I am hurting him.” His eyes start to fill with tears, and he doesn’t want to let them fall. “And I need to find a way to stop.” His voice is pleading. “My mind is grim. My hope's drop.” He shakes his head. “Is dripping away.” He looks away, but he never stays away from Josh’s gaze for long. He stares into the pools of brown. “Along with my mind.” He notices the look on Josh’s face. “Die, I may.” He speaks right to his best friend’s soul. “At least I'll be done trying to find…A way to stop his pain, and I'll claim his pain, and I try and I try.” Tyler notices that Josh’s eyes had built up with tears, just like his. “He's more than a shy guy,” Tyler tells. “He never heaves a sigh. He holds me when I cry. How will he feel when I say goodbye?”

Tyler feels his tears fall over, but he sees Josh’s.

“I am done hurting him.” His eyes follow a tear down Josh’s face. “I'll try to swim,” he promises, “in the dark waters.” He can see Josh is ever so slightly shaking; the kind of shake that you get when you are trying to be strong and hold in a cry. “But I bet he's tired of watching me drown.” He looks at Josh like he is waiting for an answer. “My mind has been slaughtered.” With the next part, he tries with every ounce of himself to reach every piece of Josh. “He deserves a crown.” He smiles. “A kingdom.” Tears streak both of their faces. “He deserves the world.” Tyler breathes heavily. “But as long as we are stuck in this rhythm.” It hurts him more to see Josh in tears than anything. “His arms stay curled, protecting me from the dark.” He tilts his head. “Am I preventing him from finishing making his mark?”

Josh’s usually pointed and perfect eyebrows are furrowed in sadness.

“I am just hurting him; I am making his light dim.” The light he claims he is dimming is ignited in Josh’s eyes. “With every tear I shed, I'm closer to being dead.” He takes a long, long breath. It is drawled out in pain. “Because I love him.” He looks for Josh’s reaction. “But I can't say, because I am making his light dim.” He starts talking the lyrics. “And if he will stay, I'll just grant him a darker fate.” He squints his eyes lightly, defining the lines by his eyes. “And I am stopping him from revealing his great.”

He finished the song, but the tears never stop. Neither do Josh’s.

“That song—“ Josh chokes out, lifting his once furrowed eyebrows. “Was about…”

Tyler nods. Of course it was about him. Who else would it be about?

“Do you really think that?” he questions.

Tyler smiles whole heartedly--but it is laced with pain--and nods sadly.

He could clearly see Josh’s breathing stop. “You aren’t hurting me, Tyler.” He leans forward and takes the hands that once held the instrument that accompanied his voice.

Josh’s hands feel warm in Tyler’s, and they fit like a piece in a puzzle. Tyler knows what to do as Josh holds his arms out for him. He knows that he is welcome to sit on Josh’s lap as he buries his face into Josh’s neck. He knows he is welcome to cry by him.

“I love you, too…you know that,” Josh whispers.

Tyler looks up at him, examining his tears and his pain.

Josh looks at him, too. He leans down, pressing his soft lips to Tyler’s. Josh cradles his face gingerly. It is as if two forces had balanced; good and bad; night and day; light and dark; left and right. Without one, the other would be lost. Electricity pulsed through them. But it wasn’t like the kind he was forced to read about in novels in high school; everything just got so much clearer. It was like he was seeing the world from underwater before…Now, he was flying. He was lost in this endless oblivion. It was full of Josh’s warmth and love and everything he had ever imagined. It was like he had finally came home; and he had.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah. Okay.


End file.
